root / pykota / trunk / README @ 2884

Revision 2877, 27.7 kB (checked in by jerome, 19 years ago)

Added support for pysnmp v4.x in addition to v3.4.x

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1# $Id$
2
3PyKota - Print Quotas for CUPS and LPRng
4
5(c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
6This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
7it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
8the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
9(at your option) any later version.
10
11This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
14GNU General Public License for more details.
15
16You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
18Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
19
20====================================================================
21
22READ SPECIAL LICENSING AND REDISTRIBUTION TERMS IN THE FILE 'LICENSE'
23
24====================================================================
25
26PyKota features :
27-----------------
28
29    Free Software :
30   
31        - Licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
32       
33    Commercially Supported :   
34   
35        - Support Contracts are available from http://www.librelogiciel.com/techsupport/
36       
37    Operating systems :
38   
39        - Any Unix-like system as print server.
40           
41        - Any operating system as client.
42           
43    Printing systems :
44   
45        - Supports both CUPS and LPRng as the printing system.
46          NB : LPRng is only supported with versions
47          of PyKota <= v1.22HotFix1, but support for LPRng
48          may be reintroduced at a later date.
49          This version DOES NOT support LPRng !
50       
51    Databases :
52   
53        - Supports PostgreSQL as the database backend.
54          An SQL script to create the database is included.
55       
56        - Supports any LDAP server as the database backend.
57          Complete LDAP schema and sample empty tree are included.
58          Plugging PyKota into your existing LDAP infrastructure
59          is really easy thanks to PyKota's great configurability.
60         
61        - Supports SQLite as the database backend.
62          An SQL script to create the database is included.
63         
64        - Supports MySQL as the database backend.
65          An SQL script to create the database is included.
66
67        - The print jobs history can be stored in any database 
68          of your choice (or in plain text files) if needed.
69         
70        - Master and slave databases are supported : master 
71          in read+write mode, slave in readonly mode.
72          Master and slave databases can be of different types !
73           
74    Printers :       
75   
76        - Hardware or Software accounting methods are completely
77          configurable.
78         
79        - Supports any printer which can report its internal
80          page counter. Can ask printers for their internal
81          page counter via SNMP, Netatalk, PJL, PS, or any
82          other way.
83          This is completely configurable.
84         
85        - Supports DSC compliant and binary PostScript, PDF, PCL5 (up to),
86          PCLXL (aka PCL6), ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenDocument (OpenOffice.org)
87          and Zenographics ZjStream natively (through the direct use of
88          pkpgcounter's code) for software accounting methods. More formats
89          to come.
90         
91        - Supports any other Page Description Language for which you 
92          have a parser which can be scripted.
93           
94    Quota systems :       
95   
96        - Supports printers and printers groups quotas.
97       
98        - Supports users and users groups quotas.
99       
100        - Supports page quotas.
101          Page quotas can be set differently on a per printer
102          and per user/group basis.
103       
104        - Supports account balance quotas in any currency.
105          Account balance quotas can be set on a per user
106          basis. The account balance is shared amongst
107          all printers. The history of payments (positive
108          or negative credits to an user account) is kept.
109         
110        - Supports high granularity periodic print quotas : down
111          to one minute intervals if needed.
112       
113        - Page quotas and account balance can be set/reset
114          independantly.
115         
116        - Page quotas can be set on a per user or per group basis
117          for a particular printer.
118         
119        - Price per page and per job can be set differently 
120          on any printer.
121       
122        - Low level of page quota or account balance are
123          configurable.
124         
125        - Both soft and hard limit with configurable grace delay 
126          can be set for page quota.
127         
128        - Both soft and hard limits can be increased or decreased at will. 
129       
130        - Possibility to disable quota enforcement for any user
131          or group, while still keeping page accounting.
132         
133        - Each user can have an overcharging (or undercharging) factor, 
134          which is applied whenever PyKota computes the cost of a
135          print job.
136         
137        - Specific pages and credits counters can be defined per billing code,
138          and can be reset independantly of the printing history.
139         
140        - Supports a passthrough mode for printers, which doesn't modify 
141          users quota when they print.
142         
143        - Supports a maximum number of pages per job, configurable for each 
144          printer.
145         
146        - Each user can be completely forbidden to print, independantly from
147          other users.
148         
149        - A transparent printing mode is supported for users, in which
150          their quota is not modified when they print.
151         
152    Administration :       
153   
154        - Almost turn-key solution, with the help of the pkturnkey command
155          line tool for database initialization and initial configuration.
156         
157        - Powerful delegation of administrative priviledges.
158       
159        - Powerful administration tools can be used to
160          automate setting or resetting of quotas or
161          account balances at specific intervals.
162         
163        - Administration tools can modify several users, 
164          groups, or printers at once with the use of
165          powerful wildcard characters.
166         
167        - Account balances can be set, incremented, or 
168          decremented. History of payments is kept.
169         
170        - Number of pages used can be set, incremented, or 
171          decremented.
172         
173        - Both printers and users can be automatically added on
174          first print in a completely configurable way.
175         
176        - Quota report generator available either from the 
177          command line or in any web browser.
178          The web-based quota report generator can be
179          user/password protected.
180         
181        - Print quote generator can tell users how much 
182          a print job will cost them in advance.
183         
184        - PDF invoice generator to charge back users.
185         
186        - Policy with regard to unregistered users can   
187          be configured for each printer to either deny
188          printing, allow printing, or delegate the
189          decision to any external tool.
190         
191        - Warning and error messages can be automatically 
192          sent via email or via any other mean to the administrator,
193          the user, both, or none.
194         
195        - Warning and error messages' content is completely
196          configurable.
197         
198        - Configuration can be changed without needing to 
199          restart the printing system.
200       
201        - Complete print job history is kept. This can be
202          disabled if needed.         
203         
204        - Automated low quota or balance remainder can be
205          scheduled regularly or launched manually.
206         
207        - Starting and Ending personalized dynamic banners can be
208          generated on the fly, and accounted for or not, depending
209          on some configuration settings.
210          Banners can still be enabled even if the print job is denied.
211          NB : Banners are a CUPS only feature for now.
212         
213        - Duplicate print jobs can be forbidden automatically. The decision
214          can be left to any script to decide this on a per job basis.
215         
216        - Username and billing code can be overwritten at printing time,
217          to allow people to login as guest users and print as authenticated
218          users, for example.
219         
220        - The pknotify command can now interact with remote users who run 
221          the PyKotIcon application which is distributed separately.
222         
223        - Powerful data dumper to export datas to other
224          software (spreadsheets for example). Actually
225          supported formats are :
226         
227            - Comma separated values ;
228           
229            - Semicolon separated values ;
230           
231            - Tab separated values ;
232           
233            - XML.
234           
235            - CUPS' page_log format, to easily interface in
236              real time with third party apps like phpPrintAnalyzer
237              and similar tools.
238         
239    User Interface :         
240   
241        - All the command line tools accept the -h | --help
242          command line option which prints all the available
243          options and show usage examples.
244         
245        - Completely internationalized. Actually supports at least partially
246          English, French, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Swedish,
247          Thai, Greek, German, Italian, Norwegian (Bokm�, Turkish
248          and traditional Chinese languages.
249          More to come.
250         
251        - Web enabled print quota monitor, data dumper, and quote
252          generator.
253       
254        - An On Screen Display X-Window print quota monitor is included.
255       
256        - An email gateway to allow users to retrieve their print quota
257          information by sending an email message to a dedicated address
258          is included.
259       
260        - Third party web based management tools are available.
261
262====================================================================
263       
264Planned features are described in the TODO file.
265
266Actually two (or an infinity of) page accounting methods are
267implemented :
268
269  - The 'hardware' method consists in querying the printer (via SNMP
270    or Netatalk or any other method of your choice) for its total pages
271    counter.
272    This is done both at the beginning and at the end of a
273    print job. The counters difference is then immediately used to
274    decrease the user's account balance or increase his quota usage.
275   
276  - The 'software' method consists in delegating the computation of the
277    job's size in number of pages to any external command of your choice.
278    The command can read the job's data from its standard input and MUST
279    output the job's size on its standard output. Changes to the user
280    account are reported immediately.
281   
282    PyKota featured an internal software accounting method which handles
283    several Page Description Languages : DSC compliant and binary PostScript,
284    PDF, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PCL3/4/5, ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenOffice.org Writer
285    and OpenOffice.org Impress. This software is now distributed separately
286    as 'pkpgcounter', and not included anymore in PyKota, so you must now
287    download and install it before running PyKota.
288   
289PyKota is known to work fine with most laser printers, either with
290software accounting, or with hardware accounting if the printer
291supports this.
292
293============================================================
294
295SUPPORT CONTRACTS:
296==================
297
298  You can now purchase 8x5x365@NextBusinessDay Technical
299  Support Contracts from us. The yearly fee is computed with 
300  the following formula :
301
302  (100.0 * NbPrintServers) + (2.5 * NbPrinters) + (0.04 * NbUsers) EUROS.
303 
304  This fee includes the VAT, and a free subscription to Official
305  PyKota packages.
306
307  Please send an email to alet@librelogiciel.com if you're
308  interested in purchasing such a contract.   
309
310  Remember that purchasing a support contract for Free Software like PyKota
311  is a great way to show your appreciation for the work already being done
312  on this project, and will help to improve this software in the future.
313
314============================================================
315
316INSTALLATION:
317=============
318
319NB :
320====
321
322  PyKota's documentation is available as DocBook SGML sources
323  files in the pykota/docs directory. If you obtained an
324  Official package, in the same directory you'll also find
325  the documentation in HTML and PDF formats.
326 
327  PyKota's collaborative documentation is available from :
328 
329    http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/WiKota/
330   
331  You may learn more about PyKota, if it fits your own organization,
332  its internal working, and some potential performance drawbacks and
333  how to avoid them, in a document created by Ryan Suarez at :
334 
335    http://archive.macosxlabs.org/forum/webcrossing_archive/documentation/Pykota_and_CUPS/Pykota_and_CUPS.html
336
337  You may also find the following document interesting :
338 
339    http://es.tldp.org/Tutoriales/doc-openldap-samba-cups-python/
340   
341  This document, written in Spanish by Sergio Gonzalez Gonzalez, 
342  describes the integration of PyKota into an OpenLDAP + Samba
343  + CUPS installation. Even for people who can't read spanish
344  this document is really interesting, and contains lots of
345  screenshots.
346 
347  Finally, SuSe users may find the following document to best describe
348  how to install PyKota on their favorite distribution. It's a Spanish
349  document written by Dennis Romero, and is mostly outdated now :
350 
351    http://www.cvr.espol.edu.ec/people/dennis/Pykota1.19-SuSE9.1.pdf
352 
353 
354Prerequisite :
355--------------
356   
357  See :
358 
359    http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/WiKota/Dependencies
360   
361  for an up-to-date list, or see below (maybe not up-to-date) :
362 
363  You need to have the following tools installed on the CUPS Server :
364 
365    - CUPS (http://www.cups.org)
366    - Python v2.2 or higher (http://www.python.org)
367    - eGenix' mxDateTime Python extension (http://www.egenix.com)
368    - The pkpgcounter command line tool, version 1.56 or higher. This
369      tool is now mandatory for PyKota to work.
370      (http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/)
371    - The JAXML Python module to be able to dump datas in the XML format.
372      (http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/)
373    - The Python-PAM module if you need the pknotify command to be able 
374      to check usernames and passwords.
375    - The Python-SNMP module to query printers for their page counter.
376      (http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net).
377      IMPORTANT : version 3.4.2 or higher is REQUIRED.
378      Versions 2.x won't work. Versions 4.x now work (tested with v4.1.5a).
379    - The Python-OSD module to use the graphical print quota reminder.
380      (http://repose.cx/pyosd/)
381    - SNMP tools (specifically the snmpget command) if you prefer to
382      use your own script to request query printers.
383      (http://www.net-snmp.org)
384    - Netatalk (specifically the pap command) if you plan to
385      request your printer's lifetime page counter via AppleTalk.
386      (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net)
387    - The ReportLab Python module (http://www.reportlab.org) if you want 
388      to have PyKota generate nice banners for you.
389    - The Python Imaging Library (aka PIL) module
390      (http://www.pythonware.com/downloads) if you want to have PyKota
391      generate nice banners for you.
392    - PostgreSQL's PygreSQL Python extension and the PostgreSQL client
393      libraries if you plan to use PostgreSQL as the database backend.
394      (http://www.postgresql.org and http://www.pygreql.org)
395 or     
396    - python-ldap Python module and the OpenLDAP client libraries 
397      if you plan to use an LDAP server as the database backend.
398      (http://www.openldap.org and http://python-ldap.sourceforge.net)
399 or
400    - SQLite v3.2.7 and the SQLite libraries if you plan to use SQLite
401      as the database backend (http://www.sqlite.org). You also need the
402      PySQLite module v2.0.5 or higher (http://www.pysqlite.org)
403 or
404    - The MySQL-python bindings.
405      IMPORTANT: If you are using MySQL 4.1, then MySQL-python must be
406      version 1.2 or greater. Version 1.0 does not work correctly with 4.1.
407     
408   
409  On Intel i386 architecture, and for performance reasons, it is
410  strongly suggested that you install the Python accelerator Psyco,
411  available at :
412 
413      http://psyco.sourceforge.net
414     
415  Under Debian :   
416 
417      $ apt-get install python-psyco
418     
419  Other architectures may be supported as well in the future, check   
420  this on Psyco's website.
421 
422  Installing Psyco is not mandatory, but it will speedup PCL5 parsing
423  by almost 3 times. PostScript and PDF parsing can also benefit,
424  but in an almost unnoticeable manner since this part of the code
425  is already optimal. For PCL5 this is a completely different matter,
426  and if you install Psyco you will never regret it !
427  Same remark applies for PCL6 (aka PCLXL) : the parser is completely
428  different, but the performance gain with Psyco is impressive.
429 
430  You may also benefit from having the following tools installed to
431  deal with some printers :
432 
433    - npadmin
434    - netcat
435    - ghostscript
436   
437  You need to have the following tools installed on the database
438  server :
439 
440    - PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org)
441   
442  or 
443 
444    - OpenLDAP, or any other LDAP server (http://www.openldap.org)
445   
446  or   
447 
448    - SQLite, v3.2.7 or higher (http://www.sqlite.org).
449      Beware : with SQLite the database server and the print
450      servers MUST be the very same machine.
451     
452  or     
453 
454    - MySQL 4.1 or higher.
455   
456  This list of prerequisite software may change in the future, when
457  PyKota will support more functionnalities you will be given
458  alternatives.
459 
460  Of course the Print Server and the database server can be the
461  very same machine if you've got a tiny network, or you can have
462  multiple Print Servers all storing their quotas on the same database
463  server if you've got a bigger network. (NB : with SQLite, the database
464  can't be shared between several print servers)
465 
466Hint : 
467------
468
469  - The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is to our knowledge the
470    easiest distribution to install PyKota on, because all
471    of PyKota dependencies are already included, excepted
472    for the PySNMP (http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net) module
473    and the pkpgcounter utility which for now have to be downloaded
474    and installed separately.
475
476Then :   
477------
478 
479Download the latest PyKota version from the Subversion tree :
480
481    $ svn co svn://svn.librelogiciel.com/pykota/trunk pykota
482
483You can now check if the dependencies are correct by typing :
484
485    $ python checkdeps.py
486   
487    An availability report for all the software needed by PyKota
488    will be displayed : you'll have to install the missing
489    software if you want PyKota to work correctly.
490   
491To install the software, just type :
492
493    $ python setup.py install
494
495You may need to be logged in with sufficient privileges (e.g. root)
496
497Create a system user for PyKota :
498
499    $ adduser --system --group --home /etc/pykota --gecos PyKota pykota
500   
501Put the user your printing system is run as in the pykota system group :
502
503    $ adduser lp pykota
504   
505    NB : on our system, the CUPS printing system runs as system user 'lp'.
506    Please adapt this to your own system.
507
508Go to the initscripts subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose
509the appropriate storage backend for your configuration. Read carefully
510the associated README file and execute the initialization script
511to create an empty PyKota database. Upgrade scripts may be
512provided as well. NB : if you use PostgreSQL, a good way to
513make PyKota work first time is to modify PostgreSQL's pg_hba.conf
514to allow the 'trust' database connection mode. However once PyKota
515works it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO CHANGE THIS TO A MORE SECURE
516VALUE.
517
518Copy the conf/pykota.conf.sample and  conf/pykotadmin.conf.sample
519sample configuration files to /etc/pykota/pykota.conf and
520/etc/pykota/pykotadmin.conf 
521The installation script usually copies these files into /usr/share/pykota
522
523NB : You can move PyKota's configuration files elsewhere, they will
524be searched first in user pykota's home directory.
525
526You need to adapt these files to your own needs. Especially you may
527have to create sections named after your own printers, and change
528the administrator's email address which by default is
529root@localhost. Read and try to understand these two very well
530commented files, so that you'll encounter less problems later.
531
532Also be sure to double check that commands that query printers
533for their internal page counter work from the command line
534before using them in PyKota's configuration.
535
536The rest of the installation depends on your printing system :
537
538  - CUPS Printing System :
539 
540    Once and for all :
541   
542        Create a symbolic link to the cupspykota backend
543        in CUPS's backend directory :
544       
545          $ cd /usr/lib/cups/backend
546          $ ln -s /usr/share/pykota/cupspykota cupspykota
547         
548        Restart CUPS so that the new backend can be detected.
549       
550          $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
551         
552        or :   
553     
554          $ /etc/rc.d/init.d/cupsys restart
555         
556        or any similar command depending on your operating system. 
557         
558    For new printers :
559   
560        Go to CUPS management interface (http://localhost:631)
561        and choose the appropriate PyKota managed device depending
562        on the type of printer you use. For example, if your
563        printer is waiting on :
564       
565            socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
566           
567        Then choose :   
568       
569            cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
570           
571        Configure your printer as usual.   
572       
573        Now double check /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
574       
575        You should manually create a section named after the
576        printer you've just added, unless you have set
577        all options globally.
578       
579        The new pkturnkey command can help you with correct settings
580        for your printers, but don't rely on it because it is still
581        experimental work. To have pkturnkey give you some hints
582        about what to put into pykota.conf, just use its --doconf
583        command line switch :
584       
585          $ pkturnkey --doconf
586       
587        pkturnkey will try to tell you what is the best accounting
588        method for each printer and will print some lines you'll
589        just have to copy&paste in the appropriate sections in
590        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
591       
592        For more informations about what pkturnkey can do for you,
593        see pkturnkey's manual page or use the --help command
594        line switch :
595       
596          $ pkturnkey --help | less
597       
598        That's all.
599   
600    For existing printers :
601   
602        The easiest is to directly modify the DeviceURI lines
603        in /etc/cups/printers.conf, you just have to put
604        'cupspykota:' in front of what is already on these lines.
605        For example, replace :
606   
607            DeviceURI socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
608       
609        with :   
610   
611            DeviceURI cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
612           
613        or :   
614       
615            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
616       
617        Save the file and restart CUPS.
618       
619        Here too, you may find it interesting to use the pkturnkey command as
620        described above to help with manual configuration of the file
621        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
622
623  - LPRng Printing System :
624 
625    IMPORTANT : This release of PyKota DOES NOT support LPRng.
626   
627    If you want to use PyKota with LPRng, you have to download
628    an earlier release of PyKota, for example v1.22HotFix1.
629       
630Now you can begin to populate the PyKota's database with printers,
631users and groups :
632 
633Add printers and users to the quota system and set their quota values :
634
635You can either use pkturnkey, or do the same things manually by
636using the pkprinters, pkusers and edpykota command line tools :
637
638Create printers :
639
640    $ pkprinters --help
641   
642    will tell you how to create, manage or delete printers and
643    printers groups.
644   
645    $ pkprinters --add --charge 0.05 hp2100
646   
647    would add the printer named hp2100 with a price per page
648    of 0.05 unit.
649
650Create users :
651
652    $ pkusers --add --limitby balance --balane 10.0 jerome
653   
654    would create user jerome and give him ten credits to spend
655    on any printer.
656   
657Finally create print quota entries :
658
659    $ edpykota --add -P hp2100 jerome
660       
661    This will create a print quota entry for user jerome on   
662    printer hp2100. The print quota entry holds the number of
663    pages printed on a particular printer for a particular
664    user, as well as optional page limits to be used instead
665    of balance limits. See pkusers and edpykota's manual
666    pages for details.
667   
668Restart CUPS, for example under Debian GNU/Linux systems :         
669
670    $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
671   
672Your users now should be able to print but not exceed their
673printing quota.
674
675To see printer quota usage on printer hp2100, you can use :
676
677    $ repykota --printer hp2100
678   
679or :
680
681    $ repykota
682   
683    which will print quota usage for all users on all printers,
684    along with totals, if you are a PyKota Administator. If you are
685    a regular user, only your own quota report will be produced.
686   
687Quota reports are also available remotely by using the CGI script
688printquota.cgi provided in the cgi-bin/ subdirectory. You can
689also use the CSS stylesheet present in the stylesheets/ subdirectory
690and put it at your web server's DocumentRoot, to benefit from a nicer
691look, especially quota violations will appear in different colors.
692
693For additionnal security concerns, please give a look at the SECURITY
694file which is part of this software.
695
696To diagnose a problem when something doesn't work as expected,
697please read the very first entry in the FAQ document.
698           
699============================================================
700
701Additionnal tools :
702-------------------
703
704Some people have developped tools around PyKota, and make
705them available under the GNU General Public License :
706
707  - Kanakorn Horsiritham developped phpPykotaAdmin which is
708    a web based database independant administrative GUI,
709    written in PHP.
710 
711      http://opensource.psu.ac.th/~kanakorn/mambo/
712     
713    He was also kind enough to write an installation guide 
714    in english for CUPS and PyKota with phpPykotaAdmin on Fedora
715    Core 3. You'll find this document on the same website.
716   
717    This great software currently at version 0.3 is a wonderful
718    basis for an administrative GUI since it only depends on
719    PyKota commands to be present to successfully manage
720    PyKota's database.
721 
722Additionnal software will be listed here when they will be 
723ready.
724
725============================================================
726
727Mailing list :
728--------------
729
730  A mailing list is dedicated to Pykota, you can subscribe to it
731  or consult its archives at :
732 
733    http://cgi.librelogiciel.com/mailman/listinfo/pykota
734   
735  The mailing list is the preferred way to obtain support, because 
736  all members can help and can also benefit from the solutions
737  proposed by other members.
738 
739  Posts by non-members are usually rejected.
740 
741  The mailing list language is english and only english.
742   
743IRC :   
744-----
745
746  You can also chat with us :
747 
748        /server irc.freenode.net
749        /join #pykota
750       
751  Preferred language on this channel is english, but french     
752  is also accepted. Try to avoid exposing complex problems
753  in french because english speaking people on the channel
754  wouldn't benefit from the solutions.
755 
756  PyKota's main author is known as 'tamere' on IRC.
757   
758============================================================
759   
760Please e-mail bugs to the mailing list at : pykota@librelogiciel.com
761or to the main author at : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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